I think it's kind of fun to run to songs that are either affiliated with running or have "run" (or "walk" or "dance") in the lyrics/title: the theme from Chariots of Fire, Springsteen's Born to Run or Dancing in the Dark, the Proclaimers I Wanna Be (500 Miles), Men at Work's Safety Dance, Pat Benatar's We Belong (watch Talladega Nights if you're wondering about that one!), Eminem's Rabbit Run, Kanye's Jesus Walks.

If you want music with a good beat but without lyrics (sometimes people like lyrics but sometimes people find them distracting), I like the Afro Celt Sound System and Bond.

Someone posted a question about running music a couple weeks back and there were a lot of responses to that. If you can find the question, I'm sure that will give you a lot of ideas. Also, iTunes has a lot of running and workout iMixes. Have fun! (Although you may want to think about using the iPod in the race itself -- lots of discussion about that issue too ...)

Somewhere in the world someone is training when you are not. When you race him, he will win.

I am an absolute IPOD geek. I have playlists for pretty much every work out I do. I have a lot of them named by either the event I am training for or how long they are. One of the things I have found is to make playlists of my favorite songs. Sometimes I just surf iTunes to find songs I forgot I like. My favorite playlist right now has:

i-Tunes also has a few playlists in their "essentials" section that are good compilations. Type in "i-Tunes essentials" in the search bar to find them:

Running through the Hits

Running through the 70s (and 80s, and 90s)

Marathon

You can look at the lists, and either put them together with your own library, or purchase the setlist from i-tunes. Most have three sets of 25 songs each, for a total of 74-75 songs per list.

Message was edited by: jeffbc94

Personally, like running to Dave Matthews, Dashboard Confessional, Eminem, Fallout Boy, Modest Mouse, Angels & Airwaves, and of course "Sirius" by the Alan Parsons Project (formerly the opening music for the Chicago Bulls, among others). It's an interesting mix, always changing as I hear new tunes to add to the collection.

My running playlist is very eclectic, but my favorite to run to (the one I speed up with when I hear it), is definitely 'Apache' by the Sugarhill Gang. Missy Elliot has a nice improv on it called 'We Run This'. I find the title to be appropriate. =)